Yesterday was primary day in the heartland. My friend Denis Boyles ably recaps the results (his book Superior, Nebraska is excellent Front Porch material and highly recommended). I have three quick things to say:
First, congratulations to two friends, and more importantly, good men, Tim Huelskamp and Kris Kobach, winners respectively of the GOP nod for the Big First Congressional District and Kansas Secretary of State.
Second, I am hopefull that previous Porch contributor and keen observer of all things Kansas, Lance Kinzer, will add his thoughts soon on the state of Porch politics in our fair state, both in terms of recap of the past year and looking forward.
And finally, a quick nod of approval to the Jefferson County Clerk’s Office and their Big Board of election results, photographed just below. This mammoth of an older communal election experience is likely one of the last of its species in this age of automatically updating internet poll results.
Ahhhh, the salutary effects of the eraser.
It was an interesting primary season, to be sure, and Dennis’s write-up is mostly sound (why so many people thought Huelskamp was a non-factor in the 1st district was beyond me–he had the message and the moment just right). Still: Raj Goyle, “a very liberal Democrat”? I guess that explains why he (wrongly, in my view) opposed both moderate Republicans and his own party in voting against the unfortunately necessary public-schools-saving sales tax increase.
Russell, necessary? Hardly. And unfortunate is not the word I’d pick to describe one of the largest tax increases in state history.
Goyle is certainly a statist liberal. There were specific deals cut whereby mod republicans voted for the tax increase specifically to give dems running for higher office cover to vote against it.
I suppose the “necessary” in my comment follows from a prior acceptance of the basic worthiness (for all its many flaws) of our current public schooling system. Your mileage may vary.
I actually suspect you’re probably correct about Goyle; the odds of someone of his educations background and professional training being anything besides a fairly ordinary establishment Democrat are highly unlikely. Still, the voting record isn’t there to prove it. Goyle’s people have insisted to me that it wasn’t a vote-trading deal; that Goyle really is a fiscal conservative and refused to sign on to an addition to Kansas’s already regressive sales tax. Thanks to that vote, Pompeo will mostly have to rely upon attacking the Democratic party rather than Goyle to make his rebuttal of that claim of Goyle’s stick, which annoys me; I think a debate about the sales tax would have been a good one (given my stated commitment above). But then, I was pulling for Schodorf in the primary.
Give me vouchers…..I get robbed by the schools in so many ways…….
Russell, I suppose you were in favor of the criminal wallstreet bailouts……..
Caleb,
Christ is in our midst!
When you have a free moment drop me an email. I’m coming back to Fort Leavenworth to teach.
your friend,
LTC David L. Jones
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